Thursday, November 1, 2012

My pet pig

It was only for about a month one
summer when I was 6 years old. Our barrio is the last of Subic; the next town,
separated only by a river, is Castillejos -- hometown of President Ramon Magsaysay. This is in the province of Zambales.

My aunt, unable
to find me a puppy (or so she said) tied a rope around the neck of one of her
piglets and let me have him as my summer pet. I reluctantly took it thinking
she had gone batty from drinking the elixirs bought from a salesman who
traveled through our barrio. That following weekend when my father came for his respite from the daily grind, I told
him about his sister’s vice, but he ignored me. He paid more attention to my
pet pig.

My father always gave me a puppy
during the summer, and just before school would start, it would be sent off to
my aunt’s in Subic. One summer, when I was about five, the puppy I had
once taken care of had grown into a vicious guard dog and would only respond
kindly to my aunt. When I arrived for my summer vacation, he saw me as nothing
more than an intruder. He incessantly barked and snarled at me. I was upset by
it. I thought he was an ungrateful scruffy dog worthy of serious discipline
from his original master—me.

The next morning, I grabbed one of the
rakes leaning against the side of the tool shed and proceeded to scare him with
it if he didn’t learn to hush at my presence. He only got meaner and his
barking increased even more in intensity. I stopped when I heard my aunt
calling my name. She handed me two pieces of corn bread as late morning snack, which
I decided to share with that scruffy dog chained under a tree. Stupid me, I
pulled a stool to sit next to him so we could eat together like we used to when
he was a puppy. Instead of going for his piece of corn bread, he went for my
right thigh.

My aunt was worried to death; not
because I got bitten, but how my father might react when he found out.
Twenty-five excruciating shots I had to endure during that summer vacation. The
doctor would always have a little plastic toy for me or a piece of candy, but I
was always so traumatized by the needle that I enjoyed none of it. So, the next
summer when I was asking her for a puppy, she thought I might be safer with a
pig.

We became the laughing stock to some
of the folks in that barrio, but I paid them no mind. Wherever I went, there,
tagging right along was my pet pig. He was a dark brown with spots of mostly
tan and lighter shades of brown. I had trained him well enough that he no
longer required a rope around his neck.

I would also regularly bathe him with
soap like I did with my puppies. He was regularly groomed and kept clean that
my aunt allowed him inside the house much to the envy of that vicious scruffy
dog tied under the tree. In the afternoons when we went swimming at the river,
he would occupy himself by sniffing along the bank. Sometimes, he’d find
himself a shade and take a nap. He would awaken when it was time for us to go
home.

People would also find us sitting by
the sideline during the inter-barrio basketball games. Some of the players
asked me to have him as their team mascot but I refused. I knew he’d end up as
pulutan after the tournament. But my pet pig proved to be a great distraction
to the opposing teams that we soon got the respect of the barrio’s comedians;
we were no longer the butt of their jokes.

There was also the summer evening
dance on that same basketball court in which the lights and music would be
powered by a generator. My pet pig, cousins and I would be at the far corner
where we would watch the barrio’s young ladies and men having the time of their
life. We would poke fun at our older brothers on the dance floor while my pet
pig next to me tried to make sense of the whole event.

Twice a month, a Sunday mass would be
held in our barrio’s chapel next to the basketball court and my aunt would
prepare the after mass breakfast. It was a big effort since other relatives
would come over, including the visiting priest and his entourage from the
church in Castillejos. I guess it was my aunt’s show of gratitude for having
been blessed with a good income from her backyard poultry and piggery business.

My going back to the city coincided
with one of those after mass breakfasts. It was actually a grander affair
because my entire family was there to take me back home. Instead of immediately
joining everyone for a hearty meal after mass that morning, I was running
around frantically looking for my pet pig. I actually wanted to spend whatever
time we have left together. And when my father heard me asking for him, all of
a sudden he announced that we had to leave and would just have breakfast
somewhere along the way. I found myself in this whirlwind of saying goodbye to
everybody and then immediately getting whisked out and off on our way home.

The following week, when my father
sensed that I was attempting to request for my pet pig to be brought to Manila,
he told me the truth. Supposedly, my aunt had mistakenly turned him into a
lechon de leche; the table’s centerpiece on that Sunday’s breakfast buffet. And
as I cried, my father comforted me by saying that I was right all along; my aunt had, in fact, gone batty from those elixirs she loved to drink.

Notes:

Every now and then I’d still think
about that summer with my pet pig. In New York, people I talked to about it
were either puzzled or revolted by the idea of my having a pet pig. It wasn’t
until later on when it became a more acceptable idea; the evening news during
the ‘90s started to feature special interest stories about domesticated pet
pigs. People started becoming more aware how smart these animals are. And of
course, the movie "Babe" endeared pigs to a lot of people.

Oprah Winfrey once featured
a pet pig that ran out of the house and played dead right on the middle of the
street. When a couple of people walked near him, he suddenly got up, made a lot
of noise and headed back to the house, but kept turning to look at them. The
people followed the pig back to the house and discovered lying on the living
floor was his master suffering from a heart attack.

A graduate of The Ateneo de Manila, the doctor who treated my dog bite, Dr. Novales, was
given a distinguished award for his dedicated service to the indigent folks of Subic, including the indigenous mountain people (aetas) in the region.

This article is a re-post. It was originally published on Nov. 21, 2005

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I very much appreciate my articles and
photos appearing on fellow bloggers' sites, popular broadsheets, and local
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That is a sweet story, Eric and I can believe that a pet pig is a good pet. Pigs are the smartest of all domesticated animals and it is a shame that they taste so good. Maybe one day mankind will all become vegetarians and we can enjoy these animals for what they truly are, sensitive and intelligent creatures capable of forming lasting bonds.